19-letter words containing p, e, n
- armed response unit — (in Britain) a unit of police officers who are trained to use firearms in situations where unarmed police officers would be in danger
- as things/people go — You use expressions like as things go or as children go when you are describing one person or thing and comparing them with others of the same kind.
- asperger's syndrome — a form of autism in which the person affected has limited but obsessive interests, and has difficulty relating to other people
- assistant professor — An assistant professor is a college teacher who ranks above an instructor but below an associate professor.
- at one's fingertips — readily available and within one's mental grasp
- atmospheric braking — a technique of reentry in which the vehicle is maneuvered in the upper atmosphere so as to lose velocity by utilizing drag without overheating.
- audio response unit — a device that enables a computer to give a spoken response by generating sounds similar to human speech.
- auricular appendage — auricle (def 1b).
- auricular-appendage — Anatomy. the projecting outer portion of the ear; pinna. Also called auricular appendage. an ear-shaped appendage projecting from each atrium of the heart. (loosely) the atrium.
- awareness programme — a programme designed to increase awareness of something
- balance of payments — A country's balance of payments is the difference, over a period of time, between the payments it makes to other countries for imports and the payments it receives from other countries for exports.
- banker's acceptance — a draft or bill of exchange drawn on a bank and accepted by it
- bankruptcy petition — an official request for protection under bankruptcy laws, which initiates bankruptcy proceedings
- be burnt to a crisp — If something is burnt to a crisp, it is completely burnt.
- be one's own person — a human being, whether an adult or child: The table seats four persons.
- be up to one's neck — the part of the body of an animal or human being that connects the head and the trunk.
- beauty preparations — the cosmetics, creams etc used to improve someone's beauty
- below par/under par — If you feel below par or under par, you feel tired and unable to perform as well as you normally do.
- benefit performance — a theatrical or musical performance in aid of charity
- bernoulli principle — (Or "air foil principle", after Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli, 1700-1782) The law that pressure in a fluid decreases with the rate of flow. It has been applied to a class of hard disk drives. See Bernoulli Box.
- beta-naphthyl group — See under naphthyl.
- binomial experiment — an experiment consisting of a fixed number of independent trials each with two possible outcomes, success and failure, and the same probability of success. The probability of a given number of successes is described by a binominal distribution
- black carpenter ant — a large, black ant, Camponotus pennsylvanicus, that lives in damp wood in nature or in houses, where it can cause considerable damage by boring or tunneling.
- blot one's copybook — to spoil one's reputation by making a mistake, offending against social customs, etc
- blue-ringed octopus — a highly venomous octopus, Octopus maculosus, of E Australia which exhibits blue bands on its tentacles when disturbed
- breathing apparatus — an apparatus, usually consisting of tanks of air or oxygen and a mouthpiece, that enables the wearer to breath in difficult conditions such as a smoke-filled building
- brightline spectrum — the spectrum of an incandescent substance appearing on a spectrogram as one or more bright lines against a dark background.
- bring into the open — to make evident or public
- brown paper bag bug — (programming) A programming bug that is so stupid that it makes the programmer want to put a brown paper bag over his head.
- buy a pig in a poke — to buy, get, or agree to something without sight or knowledge of it in advance
- by leaps and bounds — with unexpectedly rapid progess
- by one's bootstraps — by one's own efforts; unaided
- campernelle jonquil — a narcissus, Narcissus odorus, of the amaryllis family, having clusters of two to four fragrant yellow flowers.
- cannot help oneself — to be the victim of circumstances, a habit, etc.
- canterbury pilgrims — the pilgrims whose stories are told in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
- cap-de-la-madeleine — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Three Rivers, on the St. Lawrence.
- capacitive coupling — the connection of two or more circuits by means of a capacitor.
- capacity attendance — a situation when a venue for an event is as full as it can be
- cape york peninsula — large peninsula in NE Australia, part of Queensland, between the Gulf of Carpentaria & the Coral Sea
- cape-disappointment — Cape, a cape in SW Washington state, projecting into the Pacific Ocean on the N of the mouth of the Columbia River.
- capital expenditure — expenditure on acquisitions of or improvements to fixed assets
- captains courageous — a novel (1897) by Rudyard Kipling.
- carbon steel piping — Carbon steel piping is pipes made of steel with carbon as the main alloying component, used for transporting fluids.
- cash in one's chips — to turn in one's chips for their equivalent in money
- cathodic protection — a technique for protecting metal structures, such as steel ships and pipelines, from electrolytic corrosion by making the structure the cathode in a cell, either by applying an electromotive force directly or by putting it into contact with a more electropositive metal
- cerebrospinal fluid — the clear colourless fluid in the spaces inside and around the spinal cord and brain
- chain-reacting pile — nuclear reactor
- champagne corks pop — If you say that champagne corks are popping, you mean that people are celebrating something.
- champagne lifestyle — a lifestyle involving the enjoyment of luxuries and expensive pleasures
- champagne socialist — a professed socialist who enjoys an extravagant lifestyle